Whoever first started using the phrase “I’m losing my marbles!” probably had to explain what they meant a million times before it caught on.

— Gavin Speiller (@gavinspeiller) December 18, 2012

“There are no words to describe this tragedy. Stay tuned while we describe this tragedy for 11 more hours.”-CNN

— Alex Baze (@bazecraze) December 18, 2012

Finally got around to calling to see if my parents survived Hurricane Sandy. Just been so busy.

— Damien Fahey (@DamienFahey) December 18, 2012

“Hi, I’m Captain Hook. I know that’s weird since I don’t have a hook, but it’s actually a family name. Anyway mind if I pet this crocodile?”

— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) December 18, 2012

I finally played Splinter Cell Conviction. I’ve played all the previous Splinter Cells (it’s actually the only Tom Clancy games I’ve played), but I never got around to this one. But a new one is coming out in not too long plus they’re turning it into a movie starring Tom Hardy. And while Bane seems like a good choice, I’ll miss the voice of Michael Ironsides.

Anyway, this one hugely changed up the formula of the previous games. Previously, Sam Fisher was this big clunky guy who could never last long in a fire fight so you had to sneak around all the levels carefully; often, you’d avoid combat entirely for a whole level — it was one of the definitive stealth games. But in this one he’s gone rogue and is more of a Jack Bauer type badass who can easily take out everyone in the room. In fact, that’s what stealth is in this game: Killing everyone so quickly they can’t sound an alarm. Also, stealth is mainly used in the middle of a firefight so the enemy loses you and you can flank him.

Anyway, it’s pretty awesome and I like the change from the slower paced games before it. When you see a room full of enemies, instead of saying, “How can I get by without them seeing me?” you say, “How can I kill all of them before one gets off a shot?” And you have this nice Mark and Execute skill to help. Let’s say there are five guys in a room. You mark four of them, sneak up and hand to hand kill the fifth, and then hit one button and automatically pull out your gun and headshot the other four. It’s a pretty powerful feeling taking out a whole room like that. Hitman: Absolution actually borrowed the Mark and Execute, but in that game you’d only ever use it if things went FUBAR. But here, it’s the main method of getting things done and it’s a lot of fun.

Still, according to Steam, I put ten hours in the game and I’m pretty much done with it. The main story was only so-so (it was a pretty cliched plot of a government agency committing terrorism to convince people they need government agencies) and the only part that was interesting was about Sam and his daughter (I have a daughter! In fact, the sequence that was a flashback of him interacting with his five-year-old daughter who is supposed to be dead in the present day hit a little too close to home). There are co-op options and guns to upgrade and single player challenges and a higher difficulty, but I think I got enough of that gameplay already.

There was one neat story telling element that I liked that’s unique to a video game. There was a level that was a flashback to the first gulf war, and it’s all fighting with an AK-47 and no stealth which seemed weird. But then you find out you’re not playing as Sam Fisher but instead his buddy who is rescuing him which makes you automatically have a lot of affinity for a character who probably otherwise wouldn’t have been very memorable. I thought that was clever.

It’s hard to even go over all the idiocy about guns we’re seeing lately. I hear some saying we need to ban high-capacity magazine (or, perhaps, “high magazine clips”) because then the mass-shooter will have to reload and people can rush him. First off, there are already plenty of high-capacity magazine out there, so thinking a shooter won’t get one because new ones aren’t being made in unrealistic. And even if he has to reload, do you expect the average person to rush him when you’ve made them so scared and ignorant of guns? I remember that one school shooting was done with a .22 revolver which takes a ton of time to reload, but probably no one at the school knew enough to identify and knew to rush the attacker when he fired all his initial rounds. Finally, a lot of these people suggesting unarmed people rush a guy with a gun are the same ones deriding the idea a teacher with a .38 revolver could stop a man with an “assault rifle.” Anyway, a much better strategy than throwing stuff or rushing a guy with a gun is to just shoot him. It would be nice if people had that option.

Also, why is everyone so quick to automatically go after the 2nd Amendment rights to stop shootings? If we’re in the “screw liberty” mode, wouldn’t going after the 1st Amendment be more effective? If it were illegal to talk about mass shooting and especially the shooter, wouldn’t that stop many people from doing it knowing they wouldn’t get any publicity (and also stop copycats from being inspired)? But guns are the scary freedom, so that’s what people go after whether it’s helpful or not. Of course, it would be nice if we were all very protective of all our freedoms, but that’s kind of late. At least the country is so full of guns, there is no realistic way to take that right away. It’s sort of like when the left get people dependent on their new programs making it impossible to cut spending — well, two can play at that game. The left can pester us all they want, but we got so many guns in this country and made sure there was no registration, so there is no realistic way to confiscate them even if there was the political will. Nice to know we’ve had some victories in this country that aren’t easily overturned.